


Inside Out

by Chinesepapercut



Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Pranks and Practical Jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:40:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26377435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chinesepapercut/pseuds/Chinesepapercut
Summary: It was the perfect summary of her day that it was 5:30 pm before she even realized she'd put her underwear on inside out that morning.
Relationships: Josh Lyman/Donna Moss
Comments: 3
Kudos: 50





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is another work that I had posted elsewhere and am just getting around to bringing here.   
> It's a very silly story that was inspired by a challenge in the Monica and Jess Love Boys Podcast. Hopefully it brings a smile to someone's face. Also, kudos to anyone who gets the allusion in the first line.

Donna Moss laughed.

It started as a giddy sort of giggle and crescendoed into a crazed full-throated laugh, with, embarrassingly a few snorts, as it reverberated off the tile and metal stall walls in the empty bathroom.

Laughing was all she could do really. It was the perfect summary of her day that it was 5:30 pm before she even realized she'd put her underwear on inside out that morning.

She probably wouldn't have even noticed either, if she hadn't been checking to see if her period had finally started and realized, upon closer inspection, that she couldn't see the inner seam to her panties because they were on inside out.

After her laughter subsided, she found herself faced with a strange dilemma. Now that she knew her underwear was inside out it felt weird to leave them inside out and carry on about her day. But, correcting them at 5:30 p.m. didn't seem like a reasonable proposition either. Not only would it require removal of her shoes and pants in a public restroom – even bathroom floors in the White House are still public restroom floors and therefore disgusting – if she did correct them at this late hour she'd know the outside was now soiled and well, that just wouldn't sit right with her either.

After a brief deliberation on the pros and cons of each scenario Donna finished using the toilet and returned to her desk to collect her wallet. She had just enough time to grab dinner for her and Josh before the Mess ran out of the potato and cheddar chowder they served on Wednesdays. It was the perfect soup for a cold winter day and they often ran out before dinner service ended.

Upon her return to her desk she stacked the food containers inconspicuously in the corner of her cubical where they wouldn't be visible for anyone exiting Josh's office and glanced at the clock. It was almost time for her to interrupt and end Josh's meeting.

Even going near his office gave her a feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach. Josh was trying to browbeat Representative Richards into delaying HR 3570 without a big media blitz and, as this was the 4th meeting they'd had over it, Donna surmised that it wasn't going well. It's not that the White House particularly wanted to see young gay people sent to conversion therapy, it's just that the President really didn't think legislating any type of "therapy" was an issue he wanted to debate in an election year. As his bulldog, it was Josh's job to get the democratic representative in line on that account.

But that wasn't the source of Donna's dread. Rather that was related to the aide Rep Richards had brought with him to meet with Josh. A charming young man named Clayton, the aide had taken Donna out for a date a few months prior. After the date Clayton hadn't taken the hint and had continued to call even when Donna had made it clear she wasn't interested, in part because he'd called her Donatina for the majority of the date and then asked her if she'd give him head in the backseat of the cab he insisted they share after dinner. It was one date she actually would have liked Josh to sabotage. She'd just about thought he'd all but given up and moved on until about an hour ago when there he was walking right in front of her desk smiling sweetly at her as if spit back up from hell itself as Josh ushered him into the office.

She considered using the intercom. Perhaps if she made herself scarce Josh would walk the good representative and Clayton out and she wouldn't have to see him. Then she could avoid the inevitable awkwardness that follows meeting someone again after you've effectively ghosted them. Unfortunately, Josh was a numpkin when it came to the intercom and it was just as likely he wouldn't answer it. And, if he did end up answering it on the third attempt, he'd probably get upset that she didn't just come in person to begin with.

Donna sighed and walked to Josh's closed door. She paused, ticking the seconds by on her wrist watch until the precise time they'd agreed upon her interrupting. Then she knocked on his door three times, their code for "I'm interrupting you because you told me to." She took a breath, 'time to put on my big girl pants,' she thought and opened the door. Unfortunately, the thought which was supposed to motivate her backfired and caused her to think about the fact that she had just discovered she was wearing her underwear inside out all day. That lead to a few insuppressible giggles that bubbled out before she was able to regain her composure and tell Josh he was needed in the Sit Room in 5 minutes "as they were working now to establish a secure line" and that she'd walk his guests out.

Donna was pretty sure she'd recovered from her unexpected fit of laugher quickly enough that no one noticed until, after crossing in front of his desk and shaking Rep. Richards' hand and motioning for the representative to leave his office, Josh grabbed Donna's arm before she could follow his guests out and asked quietly what was so funny.

"Nothing,” she'd told him quietly. "I'll tell you later," she amended quickly shaking her head.

The walk to the security desk was interminable, but she was almost home free and to her delight, Clayton seemed to have turned into someone more professional in the company of his boss and had been unexpectedly quiet. He had just finished turning in his pass before he turned to her and said that it was good seeing her again and wondered if she might be free for drinks later this week.

Donna smiled tightly and told him that she'd been very busy at work and she'd be sure to call him if she had time.

Donna stopped to wash her hands in the restroom before she returned to the bullpen. She checked to make sure Josh wasn't on the phone and retrieved their dinner from her desk. She knocked on Josh's door, this time just twice, and let herself in.

"A little early for dinner isn't it?" Josh remarked when he saw the food containers in her hands. He looked tired and sad.

"It's Wednesday, potato soup day."

"It's just," Josh began as he opened the container and surveyed his dinner, "he keeps telling me all these terrible stories about these poor kids whose lives were ruined by this conversion therapy and it's horrible, but I've got to make a political decision about it, you know. Where do we balance the agency for people to ruin their own lives with what we want to get done politically? It's fucking disheartening."

Donna nodded. "If it will cheer you up, I'll tell you what I was laughing about earlier."

"This isn't like your Fishhooks Mccarthy story is it?"

"That was a good story Josh!"

"Maybe it was, but it was wrapped up in a conversation about how you prayed for me after hot lead was shot into my body. Not exactly the pick me up I was hoping for."

"So," she said, testing out the water. Josh looked uninterested, and picked at his food. "When I was laughing earlier it was because I'd just come from the bathroom where I'd realized, for the first time today at 5:30, that I'd put my underwear on inside out."

He looked up sharply as her admission sunk in.

"You put your underwear on inside out?" He had that smirk and one raised eyebrow that always made her stomach fall out a little bit. "Donna, you seriously put your underwear on inside out and you've been wearing it inside out all day?"

"Oh, come on like you've never put your underwear on inside out before."

"I can tell you without a doubt that I've never put my underwear on inside out."

"Maybe you just didn't notice."

"Show me!"

"What?"

"Show me."

"What are you, from Missouri? Josh, I'm not going to show you my underwear right now."

"Oh, come on Donna I've already seen your underwear in the office. Touched them in fact."

"Yes, but they weren't actually, you know, on my body, which if I'm not mistaken, is what you're asking to see right now."

"No, but they had been worn, I could tell. And," he said around another bite of his food, "I'd like to point out that I wasn't the least bit rude about that. I was a perfect gentleman where as you've gone on and on about touching my "dirty" boxer shorts after I've worn them."

He didn't mention that all it took was the slight whiff of Donna essence still lingering on the panties that had been mailed to him to get him more than slightly riled up and that's why he'd had to take a brief cool off moment in his office before his next meeting to compose himself.

"Ok first of all, it's because I'm not your mother Josh, it's not my job to launder your boxer shorts. You're lucky they pay me to pick up your dry cleaning. And second, you were not a perfect gentleman, you held my underwear up in the middle of the bullpen in a way that still mortifies me to this day," Donna whined.

"Donna, I have to tell you, you were right this time."

"I was?" She looked confused.

"Yes, this particular trip down memory lane has improved my mood, but not as much as it would if you showed me your inside out underwear. I mean for all I know you're just making it up to make me feel better about my day."

Donna grimaced. She had told herself many times that this is just the way Josh was. That his taunts and dares didn't mean anything. His relaxed demeanor on the other side of his desk, legs up, dinner container resting in his lap, eyes gleeful from making fun of her, reinforced the thought she told herself. Despite his words, he's not actually eager to see her in her underwear. He's not Clayton asking her to go down on him in a cab and actually expecting it to happen. He's not hungry for her like she is for him. But somewhere deep down, in a suppressed part of her brain she wondered what would happen if she actually did drop her pants right then and there in his office. She wondered what his reaction would be and if maybe deep down past his cool demeanor he taunted her because he did feel the same way about her.

Donna was startled from her thoughts by a knock on Josh's door and then CJ popped her head in.

"Josh, Toby wants to discuss the thing," CJ said hooking her thumb over her shoulder.

"Yeah, ok tell him I'll be there as soon as I finish this," he answered, motioning down to his food still balanced in his lap. "CJ wait, settle something for us." He said before she could leave. "Have you ever put your underwear on inside out and only noticed at the end of the day that they were on inside out?"

CJ raised an eye brow in response.

"He's making fun of me CJ, I must have been in a daze this morning and I put my underwear on inside out and didn't notice until 5:30 today." Donna explained. "I told him to cheer him up and now I'm never going to hear the end of it."

CJ smiled carefully. "Just because it's you Donna, I'll admit that I have. And you, Josh Lyman are lying if you say you've never done that because I know you have. Now come on idiot boy, you can bring your dinner with you."

Donna watched as Josh attempted to protest, but was led away by CJ off to Toby's office for round 16 on HR5254. She found herself humming as she cleaned up the remains of their rushed dinner and then a particularly evil idea struck her. She dug into her pocket and retrieved the underwear she'd, in a moment of haste before, decided to just take off entirely. She positioned the underwear just so that it was clearly inside out and tucked it into the top pocket of his backpack before zipping it up. Then left the office before she could lose her nerve. This is what we do, we taunt each other like school children she told herself as she made a few last notes on Josh's schedule for Thursday, flipped off the light at her desk and left for the day feeling freer than she had in weeks, possibly months.


	2. Chapter 2

_….many years later during the Santos Admin  
_

Although he doesn’t say anything, Donna is struck by a strange sense of déjà vu as she watches the sommelier uncork the bottle of champagne he’s selected to accompany their meal. She rubs at the goose bumps that form on her arms in an attempt to clear the funny feeling away.

“What’s wrong?” Josh questions, his hazel eyes appear brown in the low light and crinkle at the edges warmly. He’s moved heaven and earth to plan this dinner tonight. It’s an early anniversary celebration since he will be out of the country on their actual anniversary, and splurging for a bottle of champagne to accompany their meal is one of the ways he was eager to mark the special occasion.

“It’s nothing,” she smiles and motions to the sommelier filling their glasses.

It’s not common for them to get a bottle of wine or champagne to accompany their meal, so she’s not sure why she would get déjà vu at a moment like this. It isn’t like they can’t afford it now and then, but aside from an occasional glass of red wine in the evening, Josh is mostly still a beer drinker and Donna rarely has more than two glasses of wine with dinner making an entire bottle a waste except on special occasions.

As she watches the tiny bubbles filter to the top of her glass, Donna is struck by how surreal this all feels.

She has had many surreal experiences in her life. Just walking into the White House every day was a surreal experience for many years. Coming off the first Bartlet campaign she knew she’d thrive on the energy, but she hadn’t expected to fall in love with the beauty of the actual building. Every day going to work there had brought her a sense of awe when she was able to stop and admire it. She even loved the smell of eucalyptus that seemed to permeate the building.

Over time, that surreal feeling she used to get a lot shifted and became less acute. As her life became more complex, she found that it also dulled her sense of wonder and replaced it with experience and a practiced ease at the finer things in life.

Still, Donna finds, at odd times such as having the attention of the sommelier at a restaurant, that she suffers from imposter syndrome. She still has moments where she wonders how a nerdy girl from a middle-class neighborhood in Madison, Wisconsin could end up sharing a bottle of fine champagne at one of the nicest neuvo French restaurants in the District with her husband who is Chief of Staff to the President of the United States.

They watch the sommelier walk away and Josh rubs her hand gently.

“Do you like the champagne?” he asks. She knows he ordered it just for her. Champagne is one of her favorite indulgences.

“Mm,” she murmurs, “yes, it’s delicious, thank you for getting it.”

“You seem distracted, is everything ok?”

“Yes, I just got a strange déjà vu when the sommelier was here, I think I recognize him from somewhere, but I can’t place him.”

Josh studies the menu while Donna watches the room, hoping to catch another sighting of the sommelier. It takes a few minutes, but she sees him flit across the dining room with a bottle of wine for another table and in an instant she knows why she recognizes him.

“Oh my God, I know who he is now.”

“Hmm?”

“I know who he is! He used to tend bar at the Hawk and Dove, he’s the one Margaret always used to leave her underwear for.”

Josh coughs and raises his eyebrows in surprise, but before he can speak they’re interrupted by the server looking to take their food order. Donna blushes, hoping he didn’t hear what she’d just said.

Josh orders the petite filet and Donna orders the cod. When the server leaves Josh resumes the conversation.

“So that guy, Margaret used to leave her underwear for him?” Josh looks confused.

“Yeah, I never got the details about how it started or what his reaction was, but she said it made her feel exhilarated each time she did it.”

“Was it some sort of declaration of intent or do women often go around leaving their underwear for men?”

Josh’s question causes Donna to think about the only time she’d intentionally left her panties for a man to find. The memory had long ago taken on a gauzy, dreamlike quality – suppressed for so long that it almost felt like it was a remembered dream rather than an actual event.

Donna couldn’t quite remember her motivations for doing what she did. Was she just trying to taunt him like he’d taunted her? Or was she actually trying to see if she could push the relationship to a new level? Regardless, neither had happened. Knowing that Josh’s backpack was much like his office, she’d anticipated it taking him a few days to actually find what she’d left for him. And by the next morning, having not received a call from him indicating he’d found her little present, she was already having regrets about what she’d done. She quickly devised a plan to retrieve the panties first thing in the morning when Josh was in Senior Staff, but it didn’t take long for her plan to go astray. Leo had called Josh at home that morning and had asked him to attend a breakfast meeting with a couple of senators who were flip flopping on a pet bill of Leo’s. Then Josh had just made a quick stop in the office to report in to Leo and grab what he needed for his next meeting in the OEOB. He hadn’t even taken off his overcoat before he was off again. Then he spent all afternoon locked in his office without leaving. Donna became impressed with his bladder capacity as she staked out his office hoping to get just a few minutes to get in, locate his backpack and retrieve the underwear. But before she knew it, it was time to leave and she’d barely seen Josh or his backpack all day. By the time she was able to get unhindered access to his backpack several days later, the undies were gone and he hadn’t mentioned a thing about them.

In all the years she’s known Josh, he’s never brought it up. She’s not sure if he even knew they were hers or why she left them. It was just simply radio silence. Just another overture to her ultimate assessment of their relationship as boss and employee all those years ago.

“No,” Donna answers, looking away with a small smile. “I don’t think it was any sort of declaration of intent, at least not on Margaret’s part. And no, I can assure you women don’t commonly leave their underwear for men.”

After that the conversation slips to work and Donna doesn’t even realize she’s shrugged the memory off as quickly as it had come.

That night in the master bedroom of what was once Josh’s bachelor pad and is now their marital home, as they’re shrugging out of their clothes and settling into something a little more comfortable, Josh reaches into his nightstand for his cuff link box, but then pauses as a hazy memory washes over him. He paws through the nightstand drawer, all the way to the back, until his hand closes around a small scrap of fabric that he had long since forgotten.

Josh had been amused when he first found them but quickly found himself feeling ambivalent about the pair of black women’s panties, size 8, that he’d found in the top compartment of his backpack the morning after he’d teased Donna about accidentally wearing her underwear inside out. Had she felt pressured to leave her underwear for him or was it an invitation? He didn’t know what message she was sending by leaving them and it was really only his blinding fear of being sued for sexual harassment that stopped him calling her immediately and initiating phone sex.

Furthermore, he wasn’t the type of man who got his rocks off on handling previously worn women’s underwear. Instead he much preferred what was under the underwear.

Without preamble he tosses the old pair of panties at his wife who had settled quietly under the covers on her side of the bed.

Donna looks at the underwear in her hands. They’ve clearly never been washed, but they now smell like Josh, or, more accurately like his night stand, a heady mix of wood and cologne and well, Josh.

“I always wondered what happened to these.”

“You mean you didn’t leave them for me to find on purpose?” Josh asks, mentally calculating how her underwear could have possibly ended up in his backpack all those years ago if she hadn’t done it on purpose.

“Oh no, I left them for you to find,” she says, amusement clearly evident in her voice, “I just wondered what had happened to them since I never heard anything about it after I did it.”

Donna finds she’s strangely unaffected by the revelation. However Josh felt about her at the time she left her inside out underwear for him doesn’t seem to matter as much as their more recent years of domestic intimacy. She has already found her confidence in their relationship and she’s comforted by her knowledge that something that took place many years ago won’t change his view of her.

“Honestly, I was too chickenshit to ask why you left them. I wasn’t sure if you were making an invitation to what was underneath or if you’d done it because my goading in the office that day had made you feel like you had to leave them for me and you were actually feeling harassed. I walked the fine line between teasing and sexual harassment a few times back then and only had the sense to realize it after I’d done it.”

“So you didn’t find it a turn on?”

“Well at first, sure, I mean I’m not super turned on by clothes, you know that. I’d prefer you naked any day. But they were tiny and black and smelled like you and, I’m a man,” he shrugs blushing slightly at his insinuation. “But at some point my guilt got to me and I thought I’d better just pretend like it hadn’t happened. What _was_ the message you were trying to give me with them?”

This time Donna shrugs. “I’m honestly not sure. You were the subject of many fantasies back then but I knew you were unattainable. I guess I did it to get back at you for taunting me like that, but also to see if I could push your buttons far enough to make you make a move. Do you ever think there was anything I could have done to make you cross that line?”

“Aside from saying, ‘Josh, I’m madly in love with you, take off my clothes and do me now, I’ve already cleared it with Leo, CJ and the President and you won’t lose your job no matter how much Mary Marsh bloviates about it,’ no probably not.” As he says this, he moves his hand under her camisole and begins drawing circles on the bare flesh of her stomach. The conversation ends with a kiss which progresses to more and soon the underwear is once again forgotten.


	3. Chapter 3

_…two weeks later._

“Josh, you’re going to be late!”

She stares down at his overnight bag still only half packed on the bed and his backpack by the bedroom door and shakes her head. Some things never change. That’s when the idea strikes her. Quickly she digs through the dirty laundry hamper and finds her underwear, discarded last night. They smell like her and the sex that they’d had yesterday morning and, in a previous life Donna would think what she was doing now was totally gross. But now she’s older and wiser and less inhibited than she used to be.

Josh trips into the bedroom just as she’s finished zipping the zipper. He’s clad only in a towel, his hair is wet and askew from being towel tried after his shower and he madly starts throwing clothes into his bag.

As he’s leaving, he kisses her goodbye and when he tells her that he’ll miss her most during the nights, he’s being honest. It’s just two nights she assures him.

This time when Josh finds Donna’s underwear in his backpack it’s at a particularly inopportune time. He and the President are in the midst of a very high-level meetings regarding North American trade and immigration with the Prime Minister of Canada and the President of Mexico. He’s furiously taking notes when the President taps him on the hand. His pen has run out of ink. Josh passes his pen to the President and as he’s looking for a replacement in his backpack, he feels something that he doesn’t anticipate. He pulls at it just slightly until he sees it’s satiny and blue and knows immediately what it is or more aptly, he knows immediately where he’d seen them last. He pushes the memory of his wife’s backside away with a gulp, retracts his hand immediately and zips the zipper shut very tight. Then he motions instead for the President’s body man to get him a pen instead.

As they’re in the car on the way to the hotel in Ottawa the President watches Josh retrieve notes for their next meeting from his backpack and is reminded of the pen incident.

“What was in your backpack, man, I just about thought a snake was about to jump out and bite you,” Santos asks.

Josh smiles, “It was nothing sir, Donna left me a little present is all.”

“Was it a positive pregnancy test? When Helen was pregnant with Miranda she left the test in the cup next to my tooth brush. Damn near tried to brush my teeth with the business end.”

After their wedding it seemed everyone was eager for Josh and Donna to procreate. Now, as a few years have passed, the insinuations have progressed to outright pleas from their families, so Josh isn’t easily flapped when the President brings this up.

Josh laughs. “Oh, no, she, uh,” suddenly he’s not sure he should share this, but he and the President are friends now, sort of, in the way that you become friends with someone who agrees to go along with your little odyssey after you show up on his doorstep and ask him to run for president. “She uh, left me her underwear. It’s a little joke between us.”

The President laughs and shakes his head, “Newlyweds.”

That night, safely in his hotel room, Josh remembers to remove the underwear from his backpack just as he’s getting ready for bed. Eager to not repeat his mistake and accidentally pull them out in the middle of another meeting, he throws them in his overnight bag. As he settles back into bed he feels a familiar feeling of guilt that he quickly pushes back down. But then he realizes his feelings which for so long tinged with guilt are now delightfully uncomplicated.

He jumps out of bed, crosses the room and pulls the underwear out again. They’re soft and smooth, they smell like Donna and a little like him. Then, as he’s threading them through his fingers, he dials her on his cell phone.

“I found your little present,” he says by way of greeting. “Was that a declaration of intentions or do women often leave their underwear for men to find?”

On the other end of the phone line, back in their condo in DC, Donna smiles. “Maybe this time it was.”


End file.
